Velvet Thunder (17 page)

The fiery beauty leaning over the cook fire had changed all that. And the hell of it was that he didn't mind.

Noticing his intense look, Stevie grew nervous. She began upbraiding him, telling him how foolish he was to run off into the woods as he had, informing him that she would shoot him herself if he moved so much as an inch from his place by the fire.

“Yes, ma'am.” He snuggled down into the blanket, a broad smile on his face. There was nothing nicer than a beautiful woman clucking about, worried about your health, a woman you wanted physically and emotionally, no matter the consequences. It was almost worth getting shot. The enticing smell of fresh coffee and roast deer filling his nostrils, coupled with his waning strength, lulled him into a restful sleep.

Stevie shook Heath's shoulder gently. “Lucky. Wake up.” He opened his eyes and saw the face of an angel, her platinum halo limned by the smoldering fire at her back. “Have I died and gone to heaven?”

She raised her brow skeptically. “I'm not convinced heaven's where you'd go.” An affectionate smile lit her face. “Are you hungry?”

He came to a sitting position. “Ravenous.”

“Then you're not in heaven. I'm sure men aren't hungry in heaven,” she teased, wondering at his strained smile.

He was in somewhat of a dilemma. His most urgent sensation at the moment was not hunger for food nor even for her beautiful body. It was the discomfort caused by a full bladder.

How did one tell a beautiful woman that he needed to relieve himself in the bushes before he sat down to supper? Campside etiquette was not a subject taught at the expensive boarding school Heath and his brothers had attended. Nor did the curriculum at West Point include a course on the matter.

Pity he didn't have his copy of Arthur Freeling's,
The Gentleman's
Pocket-Book of Etiquette
close at hand. Surely such problems were covered therein. Ah, well, one improvised. “You'll excuse me for a moment?”

“Excuse you?”

“I need to take a short walk.”

Understanding his meaning, her face pinkened.

Heath rose, the blankets pooling at his feet. He swayed slightly from weakness.

Stevie steadied him with a hand to his chest. “Would you like me to go with you?”

Heath touched her flaming cheek with the tip of his finger. “I think I can handle things myself.” He thought he heard her mutter, “Pity.”

Surely not.

 

 

When he returned to camp, Stevie was standing stock-still, facing the far end of the clearing. Five mounted Indians wearing war paint stared back at her from the shadows.

Heath's heart skipped a beat. His rifle was lying on the ground beside the fire, out of reach. He started to place himself between Stevie and the warriors. She waved him away.

For a long while Stevie and the Indians stared at one another. The braves made no attempt to raise their weapons. Stevie made no effort to retreat.

Just when Heath was sure he would yell his frustration, the warrior out front threw a lean, muscled thigh over his horse, slid to the ground, and walked briskly into camp. Stevie relaxed visibly. She met him halfway across the clearing.

Heath tensed, first in apprehension, then, when Stevie and the Indian embraced, in jealousy. How dare the half-naked warrior hold Stevie so familiarly?

The twosome spoke in quiet tones. Heath was unable to decipher their soft Comanche words. The affection in their eyes as they gazed upon each other was enough to incite his temper. Through the years many had called him an Indian lover, but at the moment there was one Indian he could do without. And it wasn't Stevie.

“It's been a long time since I've seen my sun-haired cousin,” Black Coyote observed. As a young girl, Stevie had visited her mother's people. Black Coyote and Jeff had been nearly inseparable. But as the Johns children grew older, they lived in the white world exclusively.

“A while.” Stevie nodded, wondering at the familiar feeling of guilt that she had somehow abandoned a people who had at one time abandoned her mother. Shrugging away the uncomfortable thought she pointed to his war paint. “Why the medicine, cousin?”

“Comacheros stole our horses.”

An Indian band's survival depended upon its remuda. With that one avaricious act, the thieves had virtually sentenced every man, woman, and child in Black Coyote's village to death. “I'm sorry.”

Black Coyote looked her full in the face. “Save your pity for the Comancheros. When we find the thieving dogs, they will pay.”

She nodded tersely.
“Toquet,
it is well.” She didn't want to know what grisly torture awaited the thieves, no matter how well deserved their punishment. “You must be hungry.”

After a moment's hesitation Black Coyote nodded.

“You and your brothers are welcome to share my fire and my food. But you are not to hurt my man. He has done nothing to you. He has been shot and is not well. I will protect him.” She told herself she referred to Heath as her man simply to protect him from the Indians. Liar!

Black Coyote met Heath's sapphire glare. He knew a jealous man when he saw one. Indian or white, men were the same when it came to their women.

The Indian turned back to Stevie and smiled knowingly. He caught the unguarded expression on her face. It was clear to him that his half-white cousin was as smitten as the man she protected. She looked like a she-bear protecting her cub. “We will not harm your man. But can you promise Black Coyote that your man will not hurt us?”

She cast a glance in Heath's direction, pleased to see that he didn't like her talking with her handsome cousin. Could he possibly be jealous? She turned back to Black Coyote and stood on tiptoe, placing a kiss on his cheek. Out the corner of her eye she saw Heath's jaw tense. “You're on your own.” She chuckled softly.

The action was so intimate, the sound so provocative that Heath was ready to commit murder.

“I think your man does not want to share
Yo-oh-hobt Pa-pi,
Yellow Hair, with Black Coyote.”

“You're probably right. White men are funny that way,” she deadpanned.

She felt a slight sense of unease when she heard her Comanche name pronounced after so many years. It gave rise to feelings too complex to deal with at the moment. Pointing toward the meat, she told Black Coyote's warriors they were welcome to eat.

They descended upon the venison as if they were starved. Their protruding ribs and gaunt frames caused Stevie's heart to ache. At one time Black Coyote had been as big as Heath. Now Heath outweighed him by at least thirty pounds. Obviously, times were harder for the Comanche renegades than she realized.

Glad that the Indians were eating their fill, she took a plate to Heath, noticing how closely he watched the men.

They were renegade Indians on the warpath, Heath knew. But somehow they didn't look very savage eating the meal Stevie had cooked, teasing her as if she were their kid sister.

But what surprised him most was Stevie's wariness around them. She smiled at their good-natured jests. Yet somehow her smile seemed strained.

Was she embarrassed? Heath wondered. Was she ashamed of her relation to them? He sincerely hoped she didn't think he was so small as to think less of her for her Indian ancestry.

Perhaps she looked down on herself because of it? He had known half-breeds who tried to hide their ancestry. But he couldn't imagine Stevie hiding anything. She was the most straightforward, unassuming woman he had ever known. It was one of her many traits he found so appealing. Yet he remembered the poignant way she told of Lame Wolf's hanging. He sensed that Stevie's feelings about her ancestry were quite complicated.

“Do you have far to travel, cousin?”

Heath's head jerked up when Stevie called Black Coyote cousin. He was uncomfortable admitting how relieved he was that she was related to the man she seemed to care about so much.

“Far.”

It pained Stevie to see Black Coyote and his men reduced to riding bony nags. Comanches were the greatest horsemen in the world. This indisputable fact was a source of pride for the Nation, particularly these renegades in New Mexico Territory who resisted being confined to the white man's reservation.

Their wealth was measured by the number and quality of their mounts. The worthless horseflesh cropping at the edge of camp was more than inconvenient for Black Coyote and his men; it was humiliating. No one should be humiliated, she affirmed silently, remembering all the times she had felt the sting of shame. “I know where there's a good string of horses not far from here. There's a group of white men camped on the south slope. They're trailing us.”

Black Coyote pulled himself up, pride evident in his posture. “We will steal their horses and make them walk home.”

Heath had been totally silent up to this point. Stevie and the Indians assumed he didn't know what they were saying and was unable to join in the conversation. He surprised them when he spoke Comanche. “They have rifles; you and your men have only bows and arrows to fight with.”

Black Coyote took exception. He turned an indignant gaze on his cousin's man. “We are not afraid of their fire sticks.”

Heath retrieved his Winchester where it lay by the fire. After searching through his saddlebags, he found two boxes of cartridges. He handed the rifle and shells to Black Coyote.

Black Coyote barely managed to mask his surprise.

Stevie failed altogether. She pulled Heath aside. “What do you think you're doing?”

He peered down at her from his superior height. “I'm giving your cousin a fighting chance.”

“But the whites and the Comanches are enemies. He'll kill those white men with your gun.” She lowered her voice, but the pain was evident in its husky tone. “And any others he comes across.”

“I doubt he'll kill anyone who doesn't need killing,” he said for her ears only.

Black Coyote watched the exchange, then slowly rose to his feet. “Why do you give this to your enemy?”

“You're not my enemy,” Heath stated flatly.

Wiping his greasy hands on his naked thighs, he lay Heath's gift aside, then presented him a bow and arrow.

Heath accepted Black Coyote's gift graciously.

“Do you know what to do with that?” Stevie asked, her disapproval of his actions still evident in her tone.

Heath cast her a bemused glance. He and Black Coyote exchanged meaningful looks. “I think I can figure it out.”

Black Coyote's intense gaze clung to Heath and Stevie for a moment. Appearing satisfied, he motioned to the others. Rifle in hand, he led his men out into the forest.

They disappeared as quickly and as quietly as they had appeared.

Stevie sat silently by the fire.

She didn't really know why she had reacted so negatively when Heath gave Black Coyote the rifle. Fact is, if the men who had stolen the Indians' horses were standing in front of her, or the men tracking them were within sight, she would shoot them herself. So why did it bother her that Heath provided Black Coyote the means to do so?

She sighed heavily. As always, she found her feelings regarding her mother's people confusing.

Heath joined her on the blanket. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

She turned away from him, resting her chin on her updrawn knees. “What was what all about?”

Grasping her shoulders, he turned her toward him. “You know what I'm talking about. The way you behaved around Black Coyote and his friends. If I've ever seen an ambivalent attitude . . .” he trailed off.

She jerked out of his grasp. “I can't dispute that since I don't know what ambivalent means. Remember, I'm just a dumb Indian.”

Purposefully, he responded to her in Comanche. “That last remark was beneath you.”

She shrugged as if she wasn't particularly interested in his opinion. “Why didn't you tell me you could speak Comanche?”

“'Cause you didn't ask. Now, are you going to answer my original question?”

“I forgot what it was.”

“Somehow I don't think you forget much of anything,” he scoffed. “What I want to know is why you acted as if you were ashamed of your cousin. And seemed to love him at the same time.”

“I'm not ashamed of Black Coyote.” She appeared truly horrified at the notion. Being ashamed of the violent acts committed by Comanches was one thing. Being ashamed of her family was quite another. It occurred to Stevie that the line separating the two was uncomfortably thin. “I do love him. He's one of the few men in this world who has been good to me.”

“So what was wrong with you?” he asked quietly. “You were as tight as a bow string. It was almost as if there were two of you, one who wanted to welcome Black Coyote and one who wanted to run from him.”

Self-disgust made her queasy. It was bad enough to wrestle with her own conflicting emotions, quite another to hear them verbalized. Feelings of inferiority, of not belonging, of loneliness, isolation, they were all part of being from two different worlds. Who wouldn't be—what did he call it—ambivalent?

“I'm not ashamed of him, or any of them,” she said finally, gazing at him in the dim firelight. “Actually, I haven't seen them since I was little.” Silver beams of moonlight glinted off her stygian-dark eyes. “But I love my mother's people. What's left of them.” At that, her voice broke. “What they represent . . . the things they're forced to do . . .” She trailed off, realizing how vague she sounded. “It's hard to explain.”

His heart was strangely warmed at the anguish in her eyes. He touched her cheek lightly. “I've been told I'm a good listener.”

She was surprised to realize how much she wanted to open up to someone, needed to share her burden. “I'm half Indian.”

“And?”

“And it's hard not having a people to belong to.” She gestured vaguely, searching her mind and heart for the words to explain. “When you're half white and half Indian, you're not a whole anything. You don't belong to white society, if for no other reason than you're not welcome. And I can't really blame them.” This last was muttered to herself. “And you're not really an Indian. Not if you can't condone the things they do. And no matter how much they love you, they can't understand why you disapprove of their . . . their hunger for revenge.”

“You don't approve of the Comanche protecting their ancestral lands?”

“It's what they do to protect it that I can't bear.”

“They do what they have to.”

“You just don't know what they're capable of.” She shivered involuntarily, looking over Heath's shoulder in the distance, as if she were thinking back in time. “When I was four years old I overheard Sully telling Pa about an Indian raid. The things my people”—her voice softened—“did to those settlers were inhuman.” A wealth of pain could be found in the depths of her eyes. She lowered her lids.

Heath wrapped his arms around her. He caressed her shoulders gently. Such small, fragile shoulders to carry such an enormous burden of guilt. Misplaced guilt, granted, but guilt nonetheless.

The Comanches were being systematically destroyed, their way of life annihilated, their culture decimated. And why? Greed, prejudice, and hatred. Stevie and thousands more like her would be innocent casualties.

He wished he knew how to help them, how to help the woman he held in his arms. But he was ill equipped to deal with her problems; their lives had been so different. He, who had known nothing but a life of wealth and acceptance, could do little more than comfort her.

True, during the war, during his incarceration at Libby Prison, he had been mistreated and despised for being a Yankee. But that wasn't the same as enduring a lifetime of racial prejudice.

Taking her hand, he rubbed her dusky palm and listened to the fire crackling and the steady rhythm of her breathing. “Your skin's so soft,” he marveled.

“And dark.”

Her bitterness disturbed him. “It's beautiful. You shouldn't be ashamed of it.”

“I shouldn't?” She jerked her hand back, suddenly angry. “I suppose I should be glad that I'm half Comanche. Never mind that because of my Indian ancestry I will never have a life like other girls. I'll never have babies of my own.” She blinked back tears. “I'll never have a husband of my own or a home. I'm twenty years old and this is as good as my life's gonna be.”

Heath was taken aback. “Of course you'll marry.”

“Oh, really?” she scoffed. “Who? A white man? Sure! When we left town, I saw them lining up around the block. Hoping I would consent to bear their children.”

Heath knew she was striking out at him because she hurt. “Not all white men are prejudiced. You sell them . . . and yourself short.”

Her laughter was not a pleasant thing. “But you assume I want to marry a white man. I don't. Wouldn't have one on a silver platter. Nor an Indian. I would die first before I would marry an Indian and bring more Indian children into this world. More children to be spat upon and ridiculed for their ancestry.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was unaware of this sign of weakness, so distraught was she. “I couldn't bear seeing my children treated like that,” she finished in a whisper, dropping her forehead to her knees. “I just pray I can shield Winter from the worst of it.”

Heath suspected that she was telling him things she had never told another living soul. Some, he imagined, she had never fully admitted to herself.

He didn't know quite how to respond. All he could think to do was pull her into his arms. She struggled at first, turning her back on him again. He pulled her against his chest and buried his face in her hair. “Shhh. Just be still and let me hold you.” His voice was husky, gentle, filled with something that sounded awfully like affection.

She was silent long enough to rein in her emotions. That's when she noticed that he was caressing her jaw, his thumb coming closer to her bottom lip with each stroke. Her heart accelerated. She wanted him with an intensity that frightened her. And she could tell that he wanted her.

“I won't lie with you,” she blurted out defensively. “If you want an Indian whore, you'll have to go to one of the saloons.”

Heath stiffened, angered that she would cheapen what was passing between them. It was not just lust they were feeling for each other, but genuine affection. Surely she could sense the difference. She was just too damn stubborn to acknowledge it. He released her abruptly. “You overlook one very important fact, Miss Johns. I have not asked you to lie with me.”

She spun around, gazing up at him. Her eyes sparkled with indignation. “What's wrong with me? Am I not good enough for you?”

Her change of heart was so abrupt, the look of righteous indignation so misplaced, all Heath could do was laugh. That was definitely the wrong thing to do.

“Don't you laugh at me, you green-horned, yellow-bellied, sap-sucking, toad-brained cardsharp!” She swung her fist and connected with his wounded shoulder.

He groaned, grasping his wound. Crimson oozed between his fingers as he fell back onto the blankets in agony.

She leaned over him. “I'm sorry, Lucky. I didn't mean to hurt you.”

She looked so worried, so adorable that Heath reckoned the pain shooting down his arm was worth it. He chuckled wryly. “You're a crazy woman, you know that?”

“Here, let me check it.” She unbuttoned his shirt.

He winced when she brushed against his throbbing flesh. “Dammit, be careful.”

“There's no call for you to curse at me, Lucky Diamond.” He scoffed, this from the foul-mouthed angel of Mustang Mesa.

“Be still. I can't get to it with you floppin' around like a fish out of water.”

“Owww. You're nursing skills are going to be the death of me yet.”

“You're such a baby.” She shook her head, but her examination was quick and rather gentle. She soaked the area of the dressing that had dried to his torn skin and eased the bandage back. His wound didn't look as bad as she expected. She wiped the oozing blood away, then applied light pressure until the bleeding stopped.

She sat on her knees at his side and peered down into his face. “It looks okay. But if you have to move, move slowly.”

He covered her hands where they rested on the open buttons of his shirt. “I will if you don't hit me anymore.”

“Well, don't laugh at me and I won't hit you.” She fingered his top shirt button, careful to avoid eye contact.

He rubbed the back of her hand gently. “Deal.”

The air around them crackled with sensual heat. With trembling hands she rebandaged his wound. The task complete, she started to rise.

He stilled her with a hand to her wrist. She kept her eyes riveted on the fire. “Sugar, look at me.” She obeyed. “Despite what I said earlier, I can't think of anything I'd rather do than lie with you.”

Her cheeks flamed, her heart accelerated, her mouth grew dry, while her innermost recesses grew moist. In spite of it all, her voice was fairly steady when she tossed her head and quipped, “If that's an offer to share your bedroll, no thank you very kindly. As shot up as you are, you'd probably just bleed all over me. Then blame me for hurting you afterward.”

He smiled crookedly. “Care to give it a test?”

Her legs a bit wobbly, she moved to the other side of the fire, lay on her pallet, and wrapped herself in the blanket. “Good night, Lucky.” As an afterthought she said, “Button your shirt against the evening chill.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He did as he was bid, still smiling. They lay in companionable silence, inordinately aware of the other's breathing.

“Sugar . . .”

“Hmmm?”

“If you change your mind, about . . . you know . . . I'm right here.”

She threw a small pebble in his general direction and missed. “Don't hold your breath.”

His deep chuckle raised the hair on her arms. She shivered delightfully. Turning over onto her back, she snuggled deeper beneath the blanket.

All of her senses were heightened. The stars overhead shone bright in a black velvet sky. The night sounds seemed unusually loud in the stillness. She was incredibly aware of the man cloaked in golden starlight. It was as if they were the only two people in the world. And she couldn't remember experiencing such a sense of peacefulness.

Ever.